Jack Johnson’s strength

I can hear him in the background.

"Come on, I'm holding."

 

I think that maybe you missed all the times where Wlad would use his height to lie all over the other guy like a traditional Ukrainian pudding.

Carrying a giant over and over every round saps your strength and stamina.

 

So, just like Johnson.

 

Which bit is just like Johnson?

 

I didn't miss them, I'm just not impressed on a technical level.

 

This. Johnson's boxing and today's boxing are different sports with the same name. If Johnson was as accomplished a grappler as I believe he was, he would drain, control and suffocate most modern opponents. If you have not rolled with a skilled grappler and expereinced the debilitating, suffocating panic it can bring, you just think that its one guy holding onto another and do not understand the subtle nuances and slight weight/balance/foot or hand placement shifts that skilled operators employ to control movement and walk people into traps, uppercut, shoulders, head rubs etc...

JJ would do just fine against anyone who came after him in THIS aspect of the game..

 

Hi Buddy.
There was , back in the 70s, a " grappler " called Les Kellett, he played the fool, played possum, and pretended to hurt when he wasn't, thing is, all and I mean all his adversaries, told of his otherworldly strength, they said he had a grip of iron, his arms felt like steel cables, once he got you, you were doomed, time and again he would lock on to the hapless foe and then laugh, of course it was pantomime, mind you grapple fans would have none of it, but you are right they were very strong and hard men.
stay safe P, chat soon buddy.
Mike.

 

None of Johnson's opponent had the technical abilities in the clinch to overcome the strength difference.

 

Mike, I'm a dan grade judoka although I have not trained in years, but over the years I have fought many people of all shapes, sizes, sex and age and when they grabbed my kit, it felt exactly as you have described. Book's covers are best left unjudged, its their content that matters!!

 

Correct and good answer.

 

Hard to say, I remember Frazier not overhead pressing as well as that track and field guy on competing with the stars or whatever it was, but we also don't know how well Johnson could overhead press that weight

Yeah he did strongman, but it's not like he was Magnus Samuelsson or Brian Shaw, I was thinking mostly in terms of clinching/inside fighting, I don't think he was so strong that he would have some inherent advantage over someone like Marciano or Frazier, I don't see Liston or Foreman having issues shoving him back into range of their longer reach

 

If he was making a living from strongman exhibitions, even back then, then he was probably stronger than men like Marciano and Frazier.

He also held his own in the clinches against an older Jim Jeffries, whose physical strength is hard to question.

 

Head to head John Ruiz is twice the grappler Johnson ever was.

Line up those wharf brawlers and malnourished 19th century specimens against Ruiz and it wouldn't be fair, not even close.